Ava DuVernay Adapting Octavia E. Butler’s “Dawn” Sci-Fi Books for TV

August 12, 2017

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – OCTOBER 14: Ava DuVernay arrives at the Variety’s Power Of Women Luncheon 2016 at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel on October 14, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

We have to wait until next year for Ava DuVernay’s big-budget take on Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time to hit theaters, but in the meantime, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker is working on yet another major literary adaptation.

DuVernay confirmed on Twitter she will partner with writer-director Victoria Mahoney (Yelling to the Sky) and Macro’s Charles D. King to bring late author Octavia Butler’s science-fiction novel Dawn to the small screen.

Butler, who won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for fantasy fiction before her death in 2006, launched the first in her three-part Lillith’s Brood series (formerly known as the Xenogenesis collection) in 1987.

The books follow a band of nuclear holocaust survivors offered salvation by a mysterious alien race — but only if they agree to birth children with extraterrestrial genetics into the new pool of post-apocalyptic humans. Subsequent titles in Lillith’s Brood include1988’s Adulthood Rites and 1989’s Imago.

A network, timeline, and casting details for Dawn have yet to be announced.